Production Values

Today, the other interns and I got the opportunity to observe the first step in the women’s production process: cutting 1,500 meters of fabric into smaller pieces to be sewn together by the workspace members. Something we noticed was that Harish—the amazing full-time staff member who helps manage all the workspaces—seemed to be doing all of the cutting that involved the use of a power-tool. We wanted the women to try it also, but to ensure that they did not feel awkward or embarrassed about using it for the first time, we asked Harish to teach us all together. It was actually a lot of fun to use—though admittedly we only cut fabric for an hour, so the novelty hadn’t worn off yet—but the women appeared hesitant about using it. When we asked them why they didn’t want to try it, they laughed and replied that it was men’s work. (My brain may have exploded a little bit at that moment.)

Ubuntu’s mission is to empower women to challenge these kinds of traditional gender norms about what they can and cannot do. Our job as interns is to translate this abstract ideal into real-life action; in this instance, we—both the boys and girls—loudly cheered each other on to use the power-cutter (which may have left the women a bit nonplussed). Our goals were to highlight that if even we—who had never cut fabric before— could do it, anyone could use a power-tool, and more importantly that there was no intrinsically ‘male’ quality to it.

Eventually the women tried the power-cutter (with us cheering in the background) and appeared very adept at using it, though I’m not sure if this is something they would do again without us asking them. Hopefully, over the next few weeks, they will slowly become more comfortable with assuming responsibilities that they had been barred from by virtue of their gender.